Matt Cooke the serial offender: Revisiting the Karlsson incident

Matt Cooke was supposed to be the NHL's best example of a reformed player. In the summer of 2011, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Cooke revealed how his wife's serious medical condition was affecting him, and promised to change the way he plays hockey.

"I don't want to hurt anybody," Cooke said to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Despite a well documented history of delivering career-ending cheap-shots, Cooke did change the way he played. Cooke went from an average of 112 penalty minutes per season from the previous three season down to 47 minutes for the next three.

Last week, Cooke fell back into old habits delivering this knee-on-knee hit on Colorado Avalanche defenceman Tyson Barrie.

The NHL suspended Cooke seven games for his sixth suspension in the NHL. The Avalanche have said Barrie, their best offensive defenseman, has a medial collateral ligament injury in his left knee and will be out four to six weeks.

Cooke has a history of delivering knee-on-knee hits, and this incident has done a lot to damage his recovering reputation with a hockey media that quickly accepted the reformed Cooke storyline.

"So the essential question is: Was Matt Cooke a reformed criminal or a dormant one?" Greg Wyshynski asked on the Puck Daddy blog.

To me, the answer was always a dormant one.

Having spent years watching Cooke's injurious play, I can't understand how so many members of the media were so quick to anoint Cooke a new player. To me, given the totality of damage he caused, Cooke would need to do a lot more to prove he was no longer a cheap-shot artist.

With that in mind, I would like to revisit an incident during Cooke's alleged time as a reformed player: When he cut Erik Karlsson's Achilles tendon. 

(Warning: this video is graphic)

Erik Karlsson missed 31 games with a 70 per cent tear in his achilles tendon, and it has taken him a lot longer to fully recover.

After the Karlsson incident, I felt the debate was frustratingly simplistic. It seemed people either believed Cooke was completely at fault, or not at fault at all.

The arguments against Cooke frequently got ridiculous, including Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk launching a forensic investigation to prove Cooke injured Karlsson intentionally.

I do not believe Cooke has the superhuman co-ordination or high-level medical knowledge it would take to isolate and intentionally cut Karlsson's Achilles tendon, but I do believe this incident demonstrates how Cooke can never truly be reformed.

Erik Karlsson spoke to the media over a week after the incident.

"The situation could have been prevented. I don't think it would have happened if it was another type of player, but I don't think his intention was to cut me with his skate. I refuse to believe anyone would do that. I still think the situation and this injury could have been prevented."

While some analysts criticized Karlsson for not accepting the play as an accident, I think this quote is on point.

I have a lot of trouble believing out of the roughly 700 players in the NHL, the player behind one of the most grotesque injuries in recent memory happens to be a player with the reputation of Matt Cooke.

Like Karlsson said, I do not believe Cooke cut Karlsson's tendon on purpose. I do believe that Cooke lacks empathy or a respect for other players and that contributed to Karlsson's injury.

In the same situation when a player has his skate up and pins another player to the boards, he is aware of the potential damage his blade can cause. I don't think Cooke takes the welfare of other players into consideration.

I think many of us have experience with people who seem to lack compassion, and I think Cooke is one of those people. I believe that is why Cooke developed a style of play that led to him ending the careers of players like Marc Savard, failed to prevent injuring Erik Karlsson, and reoffended with the Barrie knee-on-knee.

I believe Cooke's reformation was more a function of survival than an ethical epiphany: he knew if he continued playing the same way his job would be in jeopardy.

Matt Cooke has publicly apologized for the knee-on-knee hit to Barrie, saying it was not his intention to hit Barrie's knee, and restating how he is a reformed player.  

Call me cynical but I've heard this before.